David Weber's Fasset Drive...

[Warspite]

I've just read David Weber's "Path of the Fury", and I was wondering on a technicality of the working of the Fasset Drive.

A few brief notes, first:
The Fasset Drive is the main propulsion system used in that book, and through some unexplained (that's good) mean it generates a micro-black hole in front of the ship. Th few words involving directly the drive are: nodes and shields.
The drive is mounted in front of the ship and allows for FTL, outside of the Powell limit (similar to the gravity well problem encountered in Star Wars).

Now, the question:
The propulsion principle is: the ship is constantly falling into the black hole.
TECHNICALITIES AND PROBLEMS ASIDE, could it be possible to work?
I mean, would the ship move into the hole, pushing it with it, and so propell itself through space?
Wouldn't it just fall into the black hole and... puff?

[Dahak]

I've just read David Weber's "Path of the Fury", and I was wondering on a technicality of the working of the Fasset Drive.

A few brief notes, first:
The Fasset Drive is the main propulsion system used in that book, and through some unexplained (that's good) mean it generates a micro-black hole in front of the ship. Th few words involving directly the drive are: nodes and shields.
The drive is mounted in front of the ship and allows for FTL, outside of the Powell limit (similar to the gravity well problem encountered in Star Wars).

Now, the question:
The propulsion principle is: the ship is constantly falling into the black hole.
TECHNICALITIES AND PROBLEMS ASIDE, could it be possible to work?
I mean, would the ship move into the hole, pushing it with it, and so propell itself through space?
Wouldn't it just fall into the black hole and... puff?

The ship is constantly generating the black hole in front of it with the nodes. So when the ship moves, the generators move, and thus the hole moves. At least in this drive scenario.

[Mr Bean]

However What Provides the "Go"? I can see that the Black Hole is tugging the ship towards it very fast but how could it itself be moved?

The simple problem with the drive Senairor aside from Temporal Problems(You would age much faster on the fall into the Black Hole... or its slower, don't remeber which) the Hole can not be moved without A GREATER Mass that IT is being pulled towards

[greenmm]

nodes provide only enough power to temporarily generate the black hole, and are radiating their energy at a particular point in front of the ship...so once the ship starts "falling" in, the power isn't being beamed to the black hole anymore, and it ceases to exist... followed by the nodes generating a new black hole a little farther forward...

Or, I could just be pulling this out of my ass...

[Dahak]

However What Provides the "Go"? I can see that the Black Hole is tugging the ship towards it very fast but how could it itself be moved?

The simple problem with the drive Senairor aside from Temporal Problems(You would age much faster on the fall into the Black Hole... or its slower, don't remeber which) the Hole can not be moved without A GREATER Mass that IT is being pulled towards

It is not a real black hole. When the drive is deactivated, there is no black hole. And it can be made bigger or smaller, to get more accel or less. The bigger the ship, the bigger the Fesset-drive black hole that can be generated.
It only exists, because the nodes generate it through some funky effect. So when the ship moves, the hole moves.

[Warspite]

Dahak:
Yeah, I can see that, but still, a black hole not massive enough to prevent the ship from falling into it, but still abble to propel the ship? Weird.

Anyway, I can accept it, in a suspension of disbelief sort of way, I rather prefer he kept it similar to the other drives on the rest of it's books, without explaining too much, just say it's a Fasset Drive and be done with it... Oh, well...


Mr. Bean:
Let's not go so far into that, it would create a lot of trouble just to explain why those phenomema don't occur.
I'll give it a little try: in that Universe, the Humans dominate gravitic technology pretty well, maybe the systems in the drive manipulate the hole's mass to move it... Or even the hole is so small it doesn't present those problems. Maybe.

Could the "GO" simply be attained by thrusters? He doesn't tell anywhere in the book about the starting up processes.... ... (Now, thinking about it, it's rare to mention the startup of a spaceship, anywhere... It should be an interesting part of a story.)

[Mr Bean]

But there-in lies the Problem Even if you generate an endless stream of black holes ahead of your still not getting enough acceration to justify the Energy Cost, Might as call it a Subspace Doohikey as it makes no sense(You can't GENERATE Mass, Though Mass=Energy thats still just Releasing EXISTING energy into a usable form, Based of some roughy calacs the nessary energy->mass to generate a black hole would run you enough to build a FEW Plant Destroying Superlasers instead...

[Warspite]

And then there's the problem with the nodes diametrically opposed to the ship, they need to be moving faster than the whole assembly, otherwise... puff!

Yeah, it's better if this goes into the "brain switch off" category...

[Dahak]

And then there's the problem with the nodes diametrically opposed to the ship, they need to be moving faster than the whole assembly, otherwise... puff!

Yeah, it's better if this goes into the "brain switch off" category...

Why do they have to be diametrically opposed to the ship?
I never got the impression from reading the book.

[Warspite]

And then there's the problem with the nodes diametrically opposed to the ship, they need to be moving faster than the whole assembly, otherwise... puff!

Yeah, it's better if this goes into the "brain switch off" category...

Why do they have to be diametrically opposed to the ship?
I never got the impression from reading the book.

I (wrongly?) assumed the black hole is totally enclosed, or at least partially, with some sort of shield protection. Now, that I think of it, yeah, they were open on the bow.
Still, how could a black hole be created assimetrically? Wouldn't the thing just shoot off through the opening as soon as the formation process started? (And wouldn't that be dangerous? Having a real, "live" black hole open to everybody?)

But I digress...

OK, there's no need to have nodes on opposite sides, and there's never that indication throughout the book.

[Dahak]

And then there's the problem with the nodes diametrically opposed to the ship, they need to be moving faster than the whole assembly, otherwise... puff!

Yeah, it's better if this goes into the "brain switch off" category...

Why do they have to be diametrically opposed to the ship?
I never got the impression from reading the book.

I (wrongly?) assumed the black hole is totally enclosed, or at least partially, with some sort of shield protection. Now, that I think of it, yeah, they were open on the bow.
Still, how could a black hole be created assimetrically? Wouldn't the thing just shoot off through the opening as soon as the formation process started? (And wouldn't that be dangerous? Having a real, "live" black hole open to everybody?)

But I digress...

OK, there's no need to have nodes on opposite sides, and there's never that indication throughout the book.

Well, the black hole is surrounded from behind (the ship's body), and has shields on it's sides, but it's totally open to the front, otherwise the drive couldn't be used to intercept weapons fire. The ship itself can swing around the black hole.

[Warspite]

OK, I can see a similar analogy with Earth and a geosinchronous satelite, Earth moves in it's eliptical orbit, and the satelite moves with it also, it doesn't stay in the same point in space, so yeah, I can visualize it this way.
(although, it would be interesting to see what could happen if the Earth suddendly stopped in it's orbit....)

Bean, there might not be necessary to have mass to generate a black hole, they could [/technobabble mode] manipulate the gravitational field to simulate a black hole. [/technobabble mode]
There's allways the problem of starting the whole setup, though...